Tuesday, February 21, 2012

I am the nor-west air among the pines
I am the water-race and the rust on railway lines
I am the mileage recorded on the yellow signs.
I am dust, I am distance, I am lupins back of the beach
I am the sums the sole-charge teachers teach
I am cows called to milking and the magpie’s screech.
I am nine o’clock in the morning when the office is clean
I am the slap of the belting and the smell of the machine
I am the place in the park where lovers were seen.
I am recurrent music the children hear
I am level noises in the remembering ear
I am the sawmill and the passionate second gear.
I, Time, am all these, yet these exist
Among my mountainous fabrics like mist,
So do they the measurable world resist.
I, Time, call down, condense, confer
On the willing memory the shapes these were:
I, more than your conscious carrier,
Am island, am sea, am father, farm, and friend,
Though I am here all things my coming attend;
I am, you have heard it, the Beginning and the End.

Award winning New Zealand poet.
This was written when he was living on the Canterbury Plains at the start of his long career in poetry. Lupins were prevalent in the South Island countryside and many schools had only one teacher.

Some comments ...

The poem contains sets of three rhyming lines.

In the first line time is expressed as the wind moving in trees. A good place to start. Biblically the universe started by the movement of wind. Wind cannot be seen so much at the effects of what wind does - as in the movement of a tree or the sound from branches. Just as we cannot see time but are ever conscious of what happens over time. This is the most important aspect of time in that time continually facilitates change. In line two time is latent in both the movement of water and the change that water can make to the environment and in lines three and four we see that time is integral in defining distance and of course speed.

Time is independent of the measurement of time which is a human structuring based on the cyclical movement of the heavens over time. Time ‘just is’ and resists such measurement but such measurement allows definition of set events as in the office is clean at 9:00am (line 7) or the time set by a need as in the milking of cows (line 6).

Everything is defined by time including of course our personal association with specific events as in the time lovers meet in a park (line 9).

Time is like a mountainous fabric in which we clothe our lives (line 14). Mountainous because of the continual build of events. We only see life through a mist because we are limited by our perceptions and senses. Perhaps time has a purer view of life?

We can reflect on time past but it is only a poor second to what time can provide (line 18).

And of course the last line has Biblical connotation to the a ‘beginning’ and an ‘end’. Interestingly we tend to favour that there was a beginning and that there will be no end. Perhaps time has and will always be - if you like - a never ending fabric. I guess in due time we will find out.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

This well-known poem by T. S. Eliot was written when TSE was in his last
year at Harvard and completed in 1911 when on vacation in Munich while studying
at the Sorbonne in Paris. TSE was only 22 years old.

What is the nature of this person Prufrock. The following is the first part
of a discussion in relation to this poem …

First, look at the name J. Alfred
Prufrock. It has a certain pretension or arrogance whether or not given by
family. Of course if that was the case Prufrock would never change it because
of his timid nature. Apparently there was a Prufrock family in existence in
America.

An interesting choice ...

PRUde … a person who affects extreme modesty or propriety.

PRUdent ... a concern for the future and the taking of action in relation to
what might happen … careful of one's own interests;
provident, or careful in providing for the future.

FROCK ... well, feminine dress association ... and one definition … a coarse
outer garment with large sleeves, worn by members of some religious orders.

deFROCK /unFrock... to deprive of priestly status

… so maybe to prufrock (as a verb)…
is to deny self-expression or the self by fear and inaction … in the severe
case it could lead to death by inaction … to deprive oneself of one’s own being
… to be a fraud (consider the reference to Dante in the epigraph below).

So Eliot creates the subliminal
connotation of a ‘prude’ in a ‘frock.’

The
Dedication

Jean Verdenal was an important friend from his time in
Paris. Interestingly, TSE’s foundation work is dedicated to this person and not
to family or other friends so perhaps Verdenal understood TSE as a fellow
student and one with an appreciation of literature. Verdenal was certainly not
a Prufrock. Unfortunately he died in the Dardanelles in 1917 in action while
treating a wounded soldier. TSE updated the dedication in the 1925 edition of
Prufrock with details of his death. (Verdenal was born on 11 May 1890 and not in 1889 as
recorded by TSE.)

‘If I
thought that my reply would be to someone who would ever return to earth, this
flame would remain without further movement; but as no one has ever returned
alive from this gulf, if what I hear is true, I can answer you with no fear of
infamy.’

These
words are spoken by Count Guido da Montefelltro (1223-98) in Dante's Inferno
xxvii, 61-6. Dante recounts his visit to the underworld. In the eighth chasm of
Hell he meets Guido, punished here, with other false and deceitful counsellors,
in a single prison of flame for his treacherous advice on earth to Pope
Boniface. When the damned speak the voice sounds from the tip of the flame
which trembles. Guido refers to this, and goes on to explain that he speaks
freely only because he believes that Dante is like himself, one of the dead who
will never return to earth to report what he says.

(TSE had a a draft version of the epigraph - Purgatorio, Canto XXVI, lines 147-148.)

Relating
the Epigraph to Prufrock in the poem …

Prufrock
is fraudulent and deceitful – if only to himself – guilty and being punished …
punished by his continual paralysis … living a shadow existence … ‘like a shade’
in Dante’s underworld.

Prufrock
is only willing to share his unfortunate nature to himself… never to the world
at large … in the form of dramatic monologue … TSE invites the reader into this
hidden world of his sub-conscious thinking … Just as Dante invites the reader
to the shaded world of the dead who speak without being heard.

Looking at lines 1-12

Let us go
then, you and I,

An
invite to join Prufrock as he talks to himself …

When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;

To Prufrock the sky is etherised … ether, an anaesthetic to take away pain …
Prufrock can’t appreciate the sky … he also fears pain … ironically his fear of
pain is much more crippling

Later we see that Prufrock himself is an etherised
patient … unable to stir from his mental paralysis

Let us
go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The streets are half-deserted in another sense
because of Prufrock’s internal preoccupation

The
muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

Connotation of cheap love … unable to sleep … unhappy,
and of course something is on his mind

And
sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

The floor of cheap restaurants with shells as plates
… concentrating on negative

Streets
that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent

… perhaps the physical journey and the mental are
one of the same, I know people who find the mental indecision in this poem a little tedious

To lead
you to an overwhelming question…
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

He has a problem … like many who have
problems … don’t ask me … it is too big to discuss … I don’t want to think
about it … while of course it is ever present and it is usually followed by an elaboration ... in this case provided by the poem

Let us go
and make our visit.

Come join me (Prufrock) on this journey … and you
will discover more of Prufrock

Prufrock is clearly a thinker and his indecisive
thoughts contribute directly to his paralysis. But perhaps of more import living
in his thoughts and fears dulls his awareness of the present. He inhibits sensitivity
to his surrounds which are somewhat a bleak and empty city, an expression of
where he is mentally.

Later we will see how ‘his problem’ surfaces through the continuing
expression of his underlying thoughts. He may be a solitary figure vying for
communication but at least he invites you to a privileged insight into his underground
world (perhaps under the sea is more appropriate).

Saturday, February 4, 2012

An extraordinary exhibition open to 18 March 2012 ... and features 100 unique manuscript treasures from the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library).

Spanning more than 1000 years of history, the exhibition includes exquisite illuminated manuscripts, rare letters, sketches and documents and priceless musical scores, each handwritten by major figures in literature, religion, science, music, exploration and philosophy. Beethoven, Galileo, Goethe, Kafka, Michelangelo and Napoleon are just some of the many names represented in this exhibition.